Potentially offensive Skype emoticons removed by Microsoft

We are seeing angry Skype users emerging around the globe as news about Microsoft removing a number emoticons which have the "potential to offend" spreads. However they sadly can't show their despair iconically with the (wtf) or (swear) shortcodes in Skype anymore.

Icons including a face superimposed by a middle finger, a pair of women's legs in heels, and facial expressions rendered by typing (wtf) and (fubar) have been removed from Skype due to being potentially offensive to users. These banished emoticons were previously part of a hidden range separate to the standard ones users see in the pop up select dialogue. We wouldn't say that the (hollest) icon of a woman's legs is particularly offensive, but aside from being an inside joke for Skype staff, as a homage to former Skype CEO Stella Hollest, there's no real reason to leave it there.

Some of the above emoticons have been removed from Skype to avoid offense

A community manager on the Skype forums said: "These hidden emoticons indeed got removed with 6.14 because of them or their shortcodes having the potential to offend some users." A dedicated area of the forums was also created for users to show their support for the return of the icons, as a number of users are already complaining on the site's forums about the update brought in with version 6.14 in February.

However some popular hidden emoticons including one of a smiley face smoking, a boy mooning and a drunk are still available. Skype has also added a set of new 'inoffensive' icons, such as a defecating sheep, and a full range of Captain America emoticons. You can see the full list of pop-up one-click emoticons and the hidden emoticons and shortcodes that are currently available here. The hidden icons also include flags for most of the countries in the world from Afghanistan (flag:AF) to Zimbabwe (flag:ZW).